when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, yâknow, we were young so it didnât matter so much.Â
Being older now and having an art job itâsâŠkind of essential.Â
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like âok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.âÂ
1) you may be tempted to do âa warmup drawingâ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didnât warm up first. Itâs tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!Â
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task youâre about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface youâre going to be using, whether thatâs your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that youâre drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!Â
In order to ensure that youâre drawing from your shoulder, when youâre holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool youâre using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingersâsome people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.Â
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes iâve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i donât do that unless iâm feeling loose
b) spirals! i donât always do spirals, but if iâm stiff and the circles just arenât cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me itâs all about making sure iâm comfortable with how iâm moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!Â
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if Iâm working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I donât always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but Iâm pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and Iâll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if youâre going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.Â
g) beans. I donât do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so Iâm mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.Â
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what youâve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. Iâm bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.Â
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when youâre getting bored, etc.Â
This is a long list, I know, but I usually donât take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while Iâm drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.Â
Sometimes Iâll advance to a precision warmup and find that I havenât loosened up enough yet; itâs totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if Iâm not feeling it before I start, by the time Iâve gotten to the end Iâm usually Ready For Drawinâ. Brain hacks.Â
so, yeah! thatâs a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!Â
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